


The Future Comes Faster Than You Think

by jujubiest



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Boss/Employee Relationship, Earth-2 Barry Allen - Freeform, M/M, Moral Dilemmas, Power Imbalance, Pre-Canon, story told in flashback
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-04
Updated: 2016-03-16
Packaged: 2018-05-04 20:18:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 20,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5347262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jujubiest/pseuds/jujubiest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are two moments Harrison Wells will never forget: the first time he saw Barry Allen...and the last.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FilmInMySoul](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FilmInMySoul/gifts), [AMysteriousMuffin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AMysteriousMuffin/gifts), [Nicole+Moon](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Nicole%2BMoon).



> This is an expansion of the one-shot titled "Special Delivery." Thanks to FearlessandProud for the initial prompt that gave rise to this!
> 
> (Possible spoilers through Season 2 episode "Gorilla Warfare.")

_Don’t time travel into the past, roaming through the nuances as if they can change. Don’t bookmark pages you’ve already read._

— James Altucher

* * *

 

He will never forget the first time he laid eyes on Barry Allen— _his_ Barry Allen, on what the people here have dubbed “Earth-2.” He recalls that day with perfect clarity, as though it’s been tattooed on his brain, every moment memorialized in exquisite detail.

It was a Thursday. It was sunny outside, but unseasonably cold. His morning coffee tasted stale; he made a mental note to replace the grounds. Jesse was gone when he got up, having left early for her 8 a.m. advanced physics class. The air when he stepped outside smelled dry and crisp, like falling leaves.

And for the first few hours, on the way to work and once he got there, it seemed to be a day like any other. Just a regular Thursday, nothing special or memorable about it at all.

That is, until Barry Allen knocked on his door…

* * *

  _Earth-2_

_3 years ago_

 

Harrison Wells looked up at the knock on the door, brow furrowed.

“What?” He snapped. Then he registered the brown uniform and tower of boxes, and his face smoothed out immediately. “Oh, of course, come in!”

The delivery boy stumbled into the room, the boxes he was trying to balance teetering alarmingly. A head of messy brown hair wearing a strained customer-service smile poked out from behind the impending avalanche.

“Where should I put these down, sir?” He asked. Harrison waved carelessly, indicating the room in general.

“Oh just put them anywhere. Do I n— _he_ llo!”

As soon as he tried to take a step, the tower started leaning dangerously. Harrison could already see where this was headed if he didn’t intervene. He stepped in hastily to try to steady the kid’s armful, grabbing the two boxes off the top and depositing them on the desk behind him before turning back to grab the other three—

Only to be caught by a pair of wide green eyes looking up at him in something like awe.

“Th-thank you,” the kid stuttered. And he _was_ a kid—he couldn’t be more than twenty-five, if that. Then he graced Harrison with a bright, sweet smile, and Harrison thought to himself again, _hello._

“I’ll just…put these others down now,” he said, not moving an inch. Harrison nodded.

“Yeah, you do that…” he glanced at the kid’s nametag, barely visible over the remaining two boxes he was clutching to his chest. “Barry, is it?”

At the sound of his name coming from Harrison’s lips, _Barry_ flushed to the roots of his hair.

“Yes sir, Barry Allen.” he answered politely, turning to deposit the boxes against the far wall of Harrison’s office. He then came back over to the desk and gestured at the other two.

“Want me to move those over with the others?” He didn’t quite meet Harrison’s eyes as he said it, and Harrison found that…well, oddly endearing. It wasn’t the way his employees avoided his gaze when they knew he was in a bad mood, or the way Jesse avoided looking at him when she’d been caught in a fib. It was…bashful, as guileless and sweet as his smile.

“If it’s not too much trouble,” Harrison answered his question, trying not to sound too amused. Barry stepped over to grab the boxes, moving with grace and efficiency now that he wasn’t trying to carry too many things at once. This brought him very close to Harrison, who didn’t move. Barry’s arm brushed the sleeve of his jacket as he pulled the boxes into his arms, and Harrison could swear his blush deepened.

He waited until Barry’s back was turned, arranging the boxes against the wall.

“Have you ever been to S.T.A.R. Labs before, Barry?” The young man didn’t turn around, but he nodded.

“I deliver things here all the time,” he said, so quietly Harrison had to lean in a bit to hear him. “And I…may have taken the tour a couple of times.”

A couple of times? Harrison felt a smile finding its way across his face.

“I see. You like science?”

Barry stood and brushed his hands off on his pants, then turned and nodded, oddly solemn. His blushing had calmed itself and his eyes were earnest.

“I love it,” he said, sounding a little breathless. “Figuring out all the mysteries of the universe…find new ways to solve problems. And I like how we can never know it all. There’s always something new out there to discover.”

His eyes shone with the conviction of his words, and his smile echoed Harrison’s own.

“Yes,” he agreed softly. “Always a new question to answer, always a new variable to account for. Sometimes it’s like putting together a puzzle with half the pieces missing and no idea where the corners are.”

Barry nodded eagerly. “Exactly! It’s so frustrating sometimes….but I love it. And when you find that missing piece, it’s—“

“Euphoric,” Harrison finished for him. “Always worth it.”

“Yeah…yeah, exactly.”

Harrison suddenly realized they’d been moving closer and closer as they spoke, so that Barry was now toe to toe with him, looking up at him with shining eyes. Not because he’s Harrison Wells—although he did get a fair amount of _that_ from eager young scientists—but because of _science._ The wonder and confounding beauty of it.

This kid, this _delivery boy,_ of all things…he got it.

“Do you study physics at all, Barry?” He couldn’t help but ask. He immediately regretted it when he watched Barry’s face fall, the light in his eyes dimming slightly.

“Not really,” he said, sounding embarrassed. “I mean, I read everything I can get my hands on, but my mom…she doesn’t make all that much as a teacher, and scholarships are hard to come by, so…I didn’t really get a chance to.”

It brought on a wave of irrational anger, to think that _this_ boy wasn’t able to study something he so clearly had a passion for because of something as simple as money.

_That’s gonna get fixed,_ he thought.

“Well, how about this?” Harrison said, taking a small step back to regain some distance between them. “What if I were to hire you full time as the courier for S.T.A.R. Labs? With all the packages we’re constantly having delivered, it would honestly be cheaper in the long run just to pay one reliable person to do it all the time. And in return for doing me this favor, I’d be happy to give you access to…pretty much anything in this building you want to take a closer look at.”

Barry was staring at him like he’d just burst into the room in a red suit and announced that every day would be Christmas from now on.

“Are you _serious_?”

“Completely,” Harrison said. He turned to his desk and grabbed a pad of paper and a pen. “Write down your address.  I’ll send an official offer letter for the job by the end of the day today. You can start on Monday, unless you need more time to give notice at your current job?”

Barry shook his head, speechless and looking utterly gobsmacked.

“Fantastic,” Harrison said, handing Barry the pen and pad of paper.

Barry scribbled down his address absently, his eyes never leaving Harrison’s face.

“Sir…I don’t know what to say—“

“You don’t have to say anything,” Harrison said. “Just stop calling me sir. No one here calls me sir.”

“Oh.” Barry handed him the pad of paper, already backing out of the room as he did so, as though afraid if he overstayed his welcome the offer would be withdrawn.

“Okay…then thank you, Dr. Wells. Thank you so much.” He fixed Harrison with those eyes of his again just before he was gone, that sweet smile spreading across his face. “I can’t begin to tell you what this means to me, really.”

“Consider it entirely my pleasure, Barry Allen,” Wells murmured to the empty room. He sighed and went back to perch against the edge of his desk, thinking.

He thought of the way Barry blushed when Harrison said his name, and how for all that he clearly loved the subject for its own sake, there was still a small bit of wonder in his eyes that was just for _him._

And he was well aware that what he’d just done meant there was no chance of ever exploring either of those things any further, no matter how intriguing Barry Allen might be. Harrison knew he had a reputation among his employees as ruthless, single-minded, and abrasive in pursuit of his goals, but there were lines he wouldn’t cross, and this was one of them.

He found he could be fine with that, couldn’t bring himself to regret the decision. Barry clearly had a hunger in him, for growth, for understanding. It was a feeling Harrison knew all too well, a pull stronger than a momentary infatuation. Just having that enthusiasm in his proximity every day would be enough.

And if it came attached to those green eyes and Barry’s light-filled smile…that was a double-edged gift, but one he thought he could live with.

Harrison turned and pressed a button on his phone.

“Linda, can you draw up an offer letter? I want it mailed out this afternoon. I’ll send the details over right now.”


	2. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The following week was as great a test of Harrison’s integrity as he’d ever faced.

_There is a charm about the forbidden that makes it unspeakably desirable._

            — Mark Twain

* * *

 

  _Earth-2_

_3 years ago_

 

The following week was as great a test of Harrison’s integrity as he’d ever faced.

On Monday, Barry showed up for work bright and early, and spent most of his morning reading and signing a massive stack of new employee paperwork. Harrison wanted to be there to greet him in person, but he felt it would be inappropriate, and draw too much attention.

That didn’t stop him from taking a long lunch to give Barry a full tour of the facility. He told himself he was just being a good boss. After all, Barry wasn’t just another employee. The job he’d been hired to was brand-new, with no clear-cut expectations or parameters. It was only right that Harrison make him feel welcome and show him the ropes.

Never mind that he had never personally shown an employee around the facility before, or that Linda or another of the administrative staff could have done the job just as easily, and with less raised eyebrows.

Barry was alight with excitement the entire time, eyes roving everywhere as if he couldn’t take it all in fast enough. He read every plaque in the tourist area in its entirety, asking intelligent questions all the while. Some rode the fence a bit between scientific theory and science fiction, to be sure…but they were intelligent questions nonetheless.

It was the same when they got to the labs themselves, where the real work went on. Despite his lack of formal education, Barry had clearly found time to read up a great deal on all the latest advancements, in particular all of their public projects. Harrison found himself impressed…and he was not a man who impressed easily.

The lab staff seemed equally taken with him, almost immediately. The moment they walked in the door, a young engineer named Cisco Ramon approached, semi-warily. He always seemed a little cautious around Harrison, a little shy. But he was brilliant, and exactly the kind of acquaintance Harrison was hoping Barry would be able to make here.

“Heeey, Dr. Wells,” he said, aiming for casual and falling about a hundred feet short. “Long time no see in the Cortex! Oh, that’s what we call it in here…y’know, it’s—“

“Where everything important in the brain happens,” Barry finished for him, grinning from ear to ear. Harrison was fairly sure, as he watched the smile spread across Cisco’s face, that he was witnessing the start of a friendship for the ages.

“My man!” Cisco shook his hand with charming exuberance. “I’m Cisco Ramon. Welcome to S.T.A.R. Labs!"

“Cisco’s our resident genius inventor,” Harrison said, enjoying the way Cisco beamed at the praise.

Cisco was possibly his favorite, a brilliant mind and the kind of unhampered curiosity that came from caring more about the journey than one worried about the destination. Working for the wrong people, Cisco would be a dangerous person; he would do something because it could be done and he figured out how, without really thinking about what the consequences of doing it might be first.

“Barry’s going to be working as our new courier,” Harrison continued. “He’ll be responsible for all lab deliveries from now on, including the handling and setup of some sensitive equipment, so you’ll be seeing a lot of him. Anything he doesn’t know how to do, show him how. He needs to know the lab inside and out, so make sure he has access to anything he needs.”

“Great! Can’t wait to work with you, bro!” Suddenly, something began beeping loudly at a bank of computers against the far wall. Cisco’s eyes widened. “Uh, hey…I gotta check into that. Seeya around!”

“Yeah…seeya,” Barry said. He watched Cisco retreat, looking a little bemused.

“Nice guy,” he commented lightly. “What was that all about?”

“He’s a brilliant young man, and he has a good heart,” Harrison agreed. “And I’m fairly certain that whatever mess he’s made, he’ll fix it before he blows us all up. Shall we?” He gestured in the direction of the med bay.

“Sure!” Barry followed him, still looking around as though he was afraid he’d miss some detail as they passed through the Cortex.

The med bay was a glass enclosure just off the main room. It was one of Harrison’s least favorite areas of the lab, truth be told, although a necessary one. It was cold and sterile, and smelled strongly of disinfectant.

“Dr. Snow?” Harrison called as he ventured inside. The room appeared to be empty for the moment.

“Dr. Snow is our resident geneticist and medical expert. If you’re ever injured in the lab, she’s your first stop. If you’re going to befriend Cisco, you’ll most likely be seeing a lot of her as well.”

“Oh,” said Barry. “Are they close?”

Harrison chuckled.

“In a manner of speaking. Cisco is brilliant, but he’s also the main reason having a full emergency setup on site is necessary.”

“Got it,” Barry said, glancing warily back toward the Cortex, where the sound of beeping had yet to cease.

“Don’t worry, Barry. No one’s ever died at S.T.A.R. Labs.”

“Very reassuring.”

The rest of the tour went more or less smoothly. Harrison introduced Barry to his lead engineer, Ronnie Raymond, as well as his lead physicist, Hartley Rathaway. Ronnie was friendly and open, as always. Rathaway was the only person—aside from the absent Dr. Snow—who didn’t take to Barry immediately.

“And…what is it he’s doing here again?” Hartley asked bluntly, after a perfunctory handshake.

“Hartley.” Wells admonished, his tone sending a clear warning. Hartley raised his eyebrows, but said nothing more. Instead he pasted a smile on his face that looked charming enough, if Harrison hadn’t known it to be a farce.

“Well, welcome to the team…Barry, was it? I’m sure you’ll be a very valuable addition.” His tone stated clearly that he was sure of the exact opposite. Harrison made a mental note to have a word with him later.

“Ignore Hartley,” he said as they were walking away. “He doesn’t like people. Brilliant…but an incurable misanthropist.”

Barry’s expression, which had dulled a bit under Hartley’s critical eye, returned immediately to its former brightness.

Harrison’s watch beeped. He looked down, and blinked twice, surprised.

“Oh. Hell. I’m late.” He turned to Barry with an apologetic grimace. “I have a conference call that started…twenty minutes ago. I’ll have to drop you off with my assistant on my way. And I’m afraid we’ll have to make a run for it.”

“I think I can keep up,” Barry said, grinning cheekily.

“Oh, can you now,” Harrison returned, and he was off without a word of warning.

Barry blinked. Then:

“Hey! Come back here! You didn’t say ‘on your mark, get set!’”

And that was how they ended up racing through S.T.A.R. Labs, turning the heads of flabbergasted employees as they passed. They arrived in the administrative wing of the building, both winded from all the stairs and hands braced on their knees for balance as they tried to breathe. Harrison looked at Barry. Barry looked at Harrison. They both lapsed into breathless laughter, eyes shining. Harrison forgot for a moment that he had been late for something.

Then the click of heels approached from the entrance to Harrison’s office, and a petite young woman with neatly-bobbed dark hair and a harassed expression on her face appeared before them.

“Harrison, you’re nearly half an hour late for your one o’clock with Mr. Stagg. He’s becoming more pugnacious by the minute, and I’ve repeatedly reminded you that my job description does not include catering to the egos of entitled, pugnacious men.”

“Linda, meet Barry.” Harrison wheezed, waving a hand in Barry’s direction. He straightened up and smoothed down his rumpled jacket.

“Barry,” he said, with a bit more dignity. “My assistant, Linda Park.”

Linda offered Barry a smile and a handshake.

“Very nice to meet you, Barry. Welcome to the family. Now you,” she said, turning her attention back to Harrison. “Go take your call. I’ll get Barry set up with key card access and anything else he needs.”

“Thank you, Linda. Barry…I’ll check in with you later!”

And that was just Monday.

On Tuesday, Harrison popped his head into the workroom Linda had assigned to Barry, and found it completely transformed.

He was pretty sure this room had been a very large, very messy storage closet the day before, but now it had been transformed into a pristine, streamlined mail room, with designated shelves for the different departments: Public Relations, Administration, Research, Development, Finances, Special Projects.

Barry looked up as Harrison came in, his face lighting up at the sight of him.

“Dr. Wells! Hi! Oh wow, I’m sorry about the mess. It’s still a work in progress.”

“Mess?” Harrison looked around the room incredulously. “I couldn’t see the floor in here this time yesterday. I can’t believe you did all this in less than a day.”

“I still have a lot to do,” Barry said modestly. “And this is really just for the small stuff. There’s a loading dock for large equipment, but no real workflow for getting from point A to point B…your records show a lot of damaged equipment due to poor handling. I’m working on a system of conveyance to make the transition from truck to storage warehouse to lab as smooth and accident-free as possible. I’ve set up some time with each of the lead scientists in Research, Development, and Special Projects, to make sure I know each setup and have an idea of any changes or expansions coming down the pipeline.”

“Wow.” Harrison was once again impressed. Barry attacked something as seemingly simple as making deliveries with the same methodical attention to detail that any of his lead scientists would use to tackle a difficult research problem.

He felt…vindicated, somehow. He knew there were people in the lab that looked askance at his sudden decision to hire a delivery boy to a newly-created position and give him access to nearly everything on the Cortex floor. If anything, this showed what a spot-on impulse that had been. Barely a full day on the job, and Barry had already identified their weak spots and set about fixing them.

He grinned, and said as much.

“I knew there was something about you, Barry Allen.”

That won him another of Barry’s blinding smiles, and Harrison decided that was enough guilty pleasure for one day.

“Well, I’ll leave you to it. If you need anything else, you know where to find me.”

And he exiled himself back up to his office, where it occurred to him that he really should have told Barry to find  _Linda_ if he needed anything.

Wednesday was worse, because by Wednesday he had run out of reasons to check in on Barry, after just three days. He couldn’t just pop by and offer to take him to lunch. He couldn’t hover in his doorway, looking over his shoulder. He couldn’t even ask Linda how their new courier was working out, because it was immediately evident that he was working out beautifully.

The entire Cortex—Hartley Rathaway notwithstanding—loved him. Even Dr. Snow, who could be a bit stand-offish and slow to warm up to people, seemed to like him. Hartley, for all his natural ill-will toward everyone, had nothing explicitly bad to say about him. And Cisco and Ronnie had practically adopted him as one of their own. The only time Harrison  _did_ get a glimpse of him was when he came down to the Cortex to check in with development or special projects, and found Barry and Cisco bent over a monitor together, or Barry helping Ronnie adjust gauges and sensors.

On Thursday, Linda came into his office unannounced and shut the door.

“Linda,” he acknowledged without looking up from the papers he was reviewing.

“He’s twice your age, and you’re his employer,” she said without preamble.

Harrison looked up sharply.

“What?”

“Barry,” she said, arms crossed and eyes glaring. “And don’t say ‘what’ like you don’t know exactly what I’m talking about. You’ve been smitten with that poor kid from the word go.”

Harrison groaned and dropped his face into his hands.

“Is it that obvious?” He said from behind the safe, non-judgmental darkness of his own palms.

“To me? Painfully. Everyone else just thinks you’ve finally taken ‘eccentric genius’ to its logical wackadoo conclusion.”

“Wackadoo?” He lifted his head just enough to give her an incredulous raised eyebrow.

“It’s a word. Don’t change the subject. And just tell me now so I can prepare for the PR nightmare in advance…did you hire this kid because you had a crush on him?”

“What? No!” Harrison exclaimed, indignant. “Linda…you’ve got to know me better than that.”

Her expression softened somewhat.

“I’d like to think I do,” she said. “But I’m also one of the few who know you’re only human, despite rumors to the contrary.” She gave him a wry little smile. He sighed and sat back, pressing his palms against his temples to try to dull the headache he felt coming on.

“I swear to you, I did not hire Barry Allen because I thought he was pretty, or had a crush, or any other nefarious reason of concern to our human resources department. He delivered some packages the other day, we struck up a conversation, and…Linda, the kid is smart. He might even be brilliant, and he hasn’t had a chance to do anything with it because he couldn’t get the money together. He expressed a love for science, and I just happen to own one of the best, most advanced labs in the country. I saw a problem and I fixed it.”

As he was talking, Linda’s face grew more and more sympathetic. When he finally fell silent, she just looked at him for a moment.

“You poor, stupid, irresponsible man. You adore him.”

“I’ve known him for all of three days.” He snapped.

“I know. You adore him nonetheless.”

“I’m too old for this nonsense!”

“You’re never too old to fall in love, Harrison.” The sympathy in her voice set his teeth on edge.

“I’m too busy, then.” He said, sounding desperate even to himself. “I’m too…married to my work. It doesn’t matter. He’s twenty-something and my employee. I’m pushing fifty and I have a daughter who’s closer to being his peer than I am. So it doesn’t matter whether your…assumptions are founded or not, because they’re ridiculous either way.”

Linda nodded curtly.

“Just as long as you know that,” she said, not unkindly. “I’m not your boss, Harrison. I can’t tell you what to do. But I know a disaster waiting to happen when I see one. That’s what you pay me for, among other things. And Barry Allen is a disaster waiting to happen. Stay away from him, Harry. Promise me.”

Harrison closed his eyes.

“I promise."

And he kept his promise. He kept it through Friday, and Monday, and the rest of that week, and then the next. He did what he always did in times of crisis—for which this definitely qualified: he threw himself into his work.

It wasn’t hard, once he made up his mind to do it. It helped that there was a special project he’d been theorizing about forever, one he finally felt ready to take a stab at. And, being high-risk and incredibly sensitive, it wasn’t something he would ever bring to the Cortex floor. This was a special project indeed, and he had a discrete lab just for that purpose, to which only he and a select few others had access.

Barry Allen was not one of those others, and he’d given explicit instructions to the project team that no one not personally approved by him was to have access—not even Barry, who had access to everything.

So Harrison exiled himself to his private lab, located underneath S.T.A.R. Labs proper, and began work on the project that would change the course of human history: the particle accelerator.


	3. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harrison Wells sits alone in another S.T.A.R. Labs, in a strange new Earth, contemplating the differences between this reality and his own, and wondering if perhaps coming here was a mistake.

_I felt a pang—a strange and inexplicable pang that I had never felt before._

_It was homesickness._

            — The Weed That Strings the Hangman’s Bag

* * *

 

_Earth-1_

_Present Day_

 

Harrison sits hunched over a work station in S.T.A.R. Labs, pointedly ignoring the annoyance being radiated at his back from across the room. Cisco Ramon makes no secret of his dislike of Harrison’s presence here. But to Harrison, the younger man feels like the interloper.

It’s not that it’s at all difficult to remember that this isn’t his world. The very fact of Cisco’s presence is a constant reminder that this is not _home._ But S.T.A.R. Labs has always been _his_ place, his real home. It’s a place he can think, imagine, create. It’s the only thing about this universe that feels familiar.

So maybe this isn’t his S.T.A.R. Labs, but it isn’t really Ramon’s, either, and he illogically resents being made to feel like an alien in this mirror image of the first and only place he’d ever felt he truly belonged.

“Hey, _Harry,_ ” Cisco pipes up, not even attempting to conceal the venom in his tone. “You think you might be done sometime this year? Other people use this lab, you know.”

“When one of those other people has a viable plan for stopping Zoom to work on, I’ll scoot right over,” Harrison replies acidly.

Cisco makes an incoherent noise of frustration and stomps from the room. He doesn’t remember his Cisco being so childish.

There are so many differences between these two worlds, it makes his head hurt. Linda Park apparently never worked at S.T.A.R. Labs. Caitlin Snow is whole and relatively happy, despite all her many losses. Cisco is a meta-human—and a petulant brat—and Barry…

Barry. Oh, Barry Allen.

They’re so alike in so many ways. Same green eyes, same quick mind. But they’re also different in ways that ache, sharp and deeply. This Barry doesn’t smile as much, doesn’t have that levity to his bearing or bounce in his gait. His Barry looked at the world around him with wide-eyed wonder. He was forever young, and so beautiful to watch it brings a tear to Harrison’s eye just to think about it.

This young man is tired, and sad. His eyes when he looks at Harrison are guarded, warily searching. A part of him still wants to trust other people, but he’s afraid of what will happen if he makes that leap of faith. After what Harrison has learned of his Earth-1 counterpart—or at least, his imposter—he finds that fear understandable.

But there’s a steely courage there, too, a determination that his Barry never had because he simply never needed it. His life was simple, beautiful and quiet, until it wasn’t. And when it wasn’t those things anymore, it was too abrupt for courage. Determination could not have saved him.

He sighs deeply, drops the ridiculous gadget he’s been fiddling with and rubs at his eyes with the heels of his hands until he sees galaxies behind the closed lids.

“This isn’t working,” he says quietly, to no one in particular. “ _None_ of this is _working_.” He sounds desolate and hopeless, even to himself.

He needs to stop Zoom. He needs to save Jesse. And he needs to get Barry Allen back, somehow. He thought the answers to doing that were here, in this parallel Earth. He thought another Barry Allen might lead him to the first one, to _his_ Barry.

But he was wrong, so very wrong about everything. There’s nothing more he can do here, no help to be found in this…this sad, bedraggled shadow of the young man he remembers.

It’s time to go home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you can probably tell by now, this is alternating continually between Earth-2 Wells's POV in the present day of Earth-1 and Earth-2 three years prior (so roughly a year before the particle accelerator incident on Earth-2). The chapters which focus entirely on the present day will probably be shorter than the ones taking place in Earth-2's past.


	4. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harrison looked up at the knock on the door and felt a sinking sense of déjà vu.

_Kiss me and you will see how important I am._

            — Sylvia Plath

* * *

 

  _Earth-2_

_3 years ago_

 

Less than a month after he started work, Barry had their packages and equipment moving in and out of the lab with streamlined precision, and had reduced their losses due to poor handling to nearly zero.

Harrison watched from a distance as he created order out of chaos, and became fast friends with Cisco and Ronnie. Before long he was doing much more than just setting up their new equipment; he was assisting them on their projects more often than not, brainstorming ideas, tweaking designs, solving problems. He seemed to bridge the gap between Ronnie’s concrete mind and Cisco’s theoretical one in a way the two alone had trouble managing.

It was Cisco who got the idea for creating a micro-chamber capable of achieving absolute zero, and it was Ronnie who built the mechanism…but it was Barry who thought of using it to create a projectile that could stop any creature, no matter how strong or fast, in its tracks.

He even managed to strike up a quiet sort of friendship with Caitlin Snow. She smiled more when he was around, and seemed to thaw toward him much faster than she had with Cisco, Ronnie, or any of the other lab techs.

The only holdout was Hartley, but since Hartley wasn’t being openly antagonistic, Harrison considered it a win.

Even Linda seemed charmed by him, which made her all the more adamant in her insistence that Harrison had to stay away. She permitted him a few moments of guilty staring from across the lab once or twice a week when he went to go catch up on project developments, but other than that she seemed to have somehow orchestrated it so that Barry and Harrison never saw each other.

Of course, he could have gotten around her, if he really wanted to. But Linda had been keeping him in check since he’d hired her, always there to make sure he didn’t fly too close to the sun or pull out of the nosedive too early.

Together they’d found a line to walk between intrepid and safe, and she kept him on it. He adored her for it, and respected her greatly. He would not go behind her back on something like this, not when all she was trying to do was save him humiliation, heartache, and ruin.

Barry, on the other hand, was less cooperative. He seemed to be thwarting Linda’s carefully-laid plans without even trying.

It started small, just the morning deliveries. Linda had arranged to be there to take all of his deliveries and sign for them, and it worked for about two weeks. After that, Harrison noticed that whenever Barry arrived with his packages Linda just happened to be on an errand, nowhere to be found.

And since it wasn’t as though he could tell Barry _not_ to do his job, he waved Barry into his office and helped him unload his armful.

They chatted a little over the scratch of Harrison’s pen as he signed for everything. He told himself it was harmless, just inane details about the lab, the weather, the projects Barry was assisting on.

But before long, tidbits of their lives started to slip into these stolen conversations.

Harrison learned that Barry’s mother’s name was Nora, and that she taught high school biology. He found out that Barry’s favorite color was red, that he’d once wanted to study criminology and forensic science, and that he could never have a dog as a kid because he had a severe dog hair allergy.

It was really incredible what two people could share in a handful of minutes over a stack of delivery receipts.

In return, Harrison found himself sharing random, obscure details about himself as well…like that he organized his bookshelves by subject and date of publication, and that his favorite vegetable was raw spinach (Barry made a face; Harrison laughed).

It was only once a day, he told himself; quick there-and-gone conversations, just meaningless small talk.

But in truth, Harrison treasured those moments. He collected the little facts that made up Barry Allen like rare coins, hoarded them away in his heart behind a solid wall of denial and staunch indifference.

Eventually, of course, Linda caught on to the ever-so-slight change in Barry’s delivery schedule, and those short conversations came to an end.

Afterwards, Harrison noticed that Barry began taking his lunch in the Cortex on days when Harrison was present.

Normally, Harrison stayed to talk engineering workarounds with Cisco and Ronnie over Big Belly Burgers while Hartley, Caitlin, and Barry went off to eat real food. Then one day, out of nowhere, Harrison found himself enjoying his burger while seated between Cisco and Barry, Barry’s knee pressing—accidentally, he thought—into his thigh under the table as they all leaned in to see what Cisco was explaining about his latest project.

It became a regular thing, three times a week, and Harrison didn’t know what to do about it. He couldn’t just stop coming down to the Cortex all together, and it wouldn’t be fair to ban Barry from it, either. He could stop taking lunch there, he supposed, but that wouldn’t come without questions, and it would severely cut into the time he could spend working one-on-one with Cisco and Ronnie, which he wasn’t willing to do for the sake of his own ridiculous failings.

All he could do was shrug apologetically at Linda when she confronted him about it, and for her part, all she could do was frown and shake her head.

It was wonderful…and maddening. Every time Barry smiled or laughed, every time he made some incredibly awful science pun, every time he solved a problem…Harrison was falling, a little further every day. He told himself he was being ridiculous. It didn’t help.

He tried retreating downstairs more often, focusing harder on the real problem before him: how to get a particle accelerator of this size and speed to run without using the entire city’s daily allotment of power—or exploding.

In the end, though, he always had to resurface. And increasingly, when he did, Barry was waiting with his bright eyes, his sweet smile, and Linda nowhere in sight to save him.

Harrison was afraid he had only so much self-control left before he snapped and did something desperate…or desperately stupid.

* * *

Harrison looked up at the knock on the door and felt a sinking sense of déjà vu.

“Come in, Barry.” He kept his voice as neutral as possible.

He hadn’t spoken with Barry in almost a week, not even during his rounds through the Cortex, and he’d been skipping their lunches. He’d been spending most of every day in the underground lab, trying to keep his sanity and his promise to Linda, throwing himself into the particle accelerator project.

He’d told himself he needed a reprieve, needed to regain his focus. A short absence would give him some perspective, let him work this absurd fixation out of his system.

Now that Barry was in front of him, he knew it had all been for nothing.

“Dr. Wells—“

“Harrison, please,” Harrison said, before he could stop himself. He covered a grimace with a smile. “What can I do for you?”

“I hate to bother you—“

“You’re not.”

“—but there’s a shipment in the holding area that wasn’t on my schedule, and I’m not sure what to do with it. I would have just asked Linda, but the paperwork was marked for your eyes only.”

Harrison pressed his lips together, holding back a curse. If he wasn’t mistaken, the shipment Barry spoke of was for the particle accelerator project, and it was supposed to have been delivered to an entirely different door, one where Barry would never have seen it.

He forced a smile and reached across the desk for the folder Barry handed him, pretending not to notice when their hands brushed.

“Thank you, Barry,” he said, allowing some of his real fondness to bleed into his voice. Then, remembering himself, he stood and began pretending to organize the paperwork into the mess on his desk. “I’ll take care of it. Will that be all?”

Barry’s brow furrowed at the implied dismissal, a look of surprise chased across his face by hurt. Harrison bit the inside of his lip, determined not to say anything to fix it. This was better. Easier. Let Barry think what everyone else thought; that Harrison Wells was a cold bastard, too focused on his work to care about other people.

Let Barry think it, no matter how untrue it was, because it would be easier to avoid him once he became just another employee who tensed up whenever Harrison came into the room.

He should have known it wouldn’t be that easy. Barry stood, but didn’t turn to go.

“Dr. Wells…Harrison.” Harrison cursed himself silently. “Did I do something wrong?”

“Nothing,” Harrison said flatly. “You’re doing a fine job here. I’m proud of you.”

“Really? Because when I first got here, you said a lot of crazy things. Things like ‘here, random delivery guy who never went to college, have a job and full access to my lab because I think you’ve got _potential_ after talking to you for five minutes _._ ’And I believed you, because of the way you said them. But now…”

He trailed off. Harrison took a deep breath, steeling himself.

“Now?”

“Now, I don’t think you’re proud of me at all. I think…I think you regret me. Hiring me, I mean,” Barry sputtered at the end, sounding embarrassed.

And what else about him would Harrison regret? It wasn’t as if anything else had actually passed between them. It was all on his side, all his problem. He’d tried to ignore it, to make it go away…and here he was, making Barry suffer because he was a weak-willed old man with an infatuation for one of his employees.

 _You made a promise to Linda,_ he reminded himself. And what better way to keep that promise than to tell Barry the truth, scare him away for good?

He sighed.

“Barry…sit down,” he said, gesturing to the recently-vacated seat before taking his own once more. Barry did so, still looking hurt and confused. Harrison propped his chin on his hands and considered the young man across from him for a moment.

“How old are you?” He asked finally. Barry’s eyebrows shot up.

“Me? Twenty-two. Why?”

Harrison stifled a groan. He knew twenty-five was too generous an estimate.

“I’m forty-nine years old in December, Barry. In the average human lifespan, I’ve lived over half my allotted time on Earth. I’ve accomplished a lot in that time, and I’ve always prided myself not just on being intelligent, but on being _smart._ Making smart decisions.”

“Okay…” Barry clearly didn’t have a clue where he was going with this. Harrison dropped his hands to the desk and looked at them intently, as if they might somehow hold the key to saying this right.

“Hiring you…was not a _smart_ decision. It was a good decision, don’t get me wrong,” he said quickly, seeing the expression on Barry’s face. “But it wasn’t smart. It was an impulse, arising out of self-deception and, dare I say, hubris.”

“I don’t understand,” Barry said simply. Harrison risked a glance up, trying to read in his expression what he couldn’t find in his voice. There was no help for him there; Barry’s face wasn’t hurt now, or angry…just plainly confused. He didn’t understand. And Harrison really didn’t want to make him understand. But in all fairness, he had to.

He took a deep breath, then let it out slowly, the air almost whistling through his teeth.

“Barry. I hired you because I saw a brilliant person being held back by something meaningless and petty, and couldn’t abide it. And I have not regretted for a moment making you a part of S.T.A.R. Labs. The other things you sense…the way I’ve withdrawn over the last week…that has nothing to do with you. You’ve done nothing wrong. I’m moved to act the way I do for…selfish reasons.”

“Like what?” Barry said, voice pleading. “Please, Harrison. I don’t understand.”

Harrison closed his eyes against the sound of his name on Barry’s lips, and made himself say it.

“Because the way I feel about you is…inappropriate.”

“In…inappropriate?” It was dawning on him, finally, the thing Harrison couldn’t make himself say outright. He put a hand to his face to hide his mortification, rubbing at his eyes in lieu of facing Barry’s disgust.

“Inappropriate, yes. I have no excuses, except that I’m a weak man…a weak, pitiful old man who should have known better than to ever—I’m so sorry.”

“You’re…sorry.”

“Yes,” Harrison said without looking up. Now that the hard part was out, he spoke the rest in a mechanical rush, wanting it over with.

“You have my deepest apologies. Please understand that I will not bother you further, should you choose to remain at S.T.A.R. Labs. You can hand all my deliveries off to Linda, as well as any paperwork that I need to sign. I’ll work out a schedule that will allow you to maintain your access to the Cortex without any intrusions from me. And should you choose to leave, I will gladly put all my resources toward helping you find anoth—mmmf!”

Between one word and the next, Harrison found his tirade interrupted by two hands reaching across the desk to tilt his face forward, and a soft pair of lips pressed firmly against his own.

It was over as quickly as it began. Harrison opened his eyes, blinking, to see Barry sitting rigid in the seat across from him, face beet red but lips fighting a smile.

“I…I’m sorry,” he said. He didn’t look or sound the least bit sorry. “That was totally out of line.”

“Yes,” Harrison said, dazed. “Totally, completely out of line.”

But something in his voice must not have been right, because Barry perked up, leaning forward in his seat slightly.

“I shouldn’t have done it,” he said, testing.

“No…you really shouldn’t have.” Harrison tried to sound firm, but it just came out soft, bemused.

Barry stood up, rounded the desk, and leaned over Harrison’s chair, bracing his hands against the high back and looking him directly in the eyes, barely a foot between them.

“I wanna do it again,” he said, voice barely above a whisper.

Harrison stared back at him, wide-eyed and heart pounding. His mind was in overdrive, replaying every moment between them and suddenly coming to a new and startling conclusion.

All the seemingly inadvertent dodging of Linda’s attempts to keep them apart. All the looks, smiles, shared laughter…little moments that Harrison had treasured but known, _known_ were only this important to him. The way Barry crowded so close to him around Cisco’s work station over lunch, always some part of them touching by pure, innocent accident.

Maybe Harrison was an old fool or maybe he wasn’t, but with Barry hovering over him like this, and the ghost of that kiss still tingling on his lips, all he could think was that Barry _wanted_ him.

He could almost feel the warmth of him, could smell the soap he’d used when he showered that morning. At this range, he could make out the different threads of green in his irises, see the tremble of uncertainty at the corner of his cheeky grin. He knew that smile…he’d felt it often enough on his own face, and he knew just how fragile a façade it was.

He could push Barry away, ask him to leave, and end this whole thing. It would hurt, and not just him. But it would be over. It was what he _should_ do.

 _You made Linda a promise,_ he reminded himself again.

Then he closed his eyes, leaned in, and broke it.

Their lips met more softly than last time, hesitant and careful, just the slightest pressure. Harrison flattened his hands against the leather arms of his chair, wanting to reach out and touch but at the same time afraid to. His thoughts were going haywire, an endless loop of _wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong_ beating through his brain like the thrum of his own heartbeat in his ears.

Barry, on the other hand, seemed to know no fear now that Harrison had not turned him away. He pressed in, backing the chair against the shelves behind them with a loud thump, and somehow managed to climb _into_ it, straddling Harrison’s lap, his knees bracketing Harrison’s hips.

_Wrong, this is all so wrong._

He let go of his grip on the chair, allowing the shelves at Harrison’s back to hold him steady as he reached again for Harrison’s face, cupping it in his hands and deepening the kiss, holding him there as if he thought Harrison might change his mind and decide to push him away after all.

_Wrong. So wrong. You should stop._

That was it for his self-control; he couldn’t take it anymore. He needed to touch, to feel Barry beneath his hands. So he did, reaching up to grasp Barry’s hips and hold him there in the moment just as surely as Barry held him.

_Wrong! This is wrong! You should stop before you do something you can’t come back from!_

Barry made a small noise into his mouth at the contact, and Harrison felt a shiver of goosebumps run over him. His lips parted on a gasp of surprise, and Barry took the opportunity to slip his tongue inside.

The cacophony in Harrison’s head went quiet.

He was breaking his promise.

He was not being smart.

And suddenly he couldn’t find it in himself to care. There was nothing but the feeling of Barry against his lips and in his arms, and it was all so perfect. It felt so _right._

Next to that, nothing else seemed important.


	5. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harrison and Barry lay down a few ground rules, and Harrison finds that he's terrible at following them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter could probably use a couple more read-throughs but I feel bad about taking so long to get it up, so forgive any mistakes or inconsistencies! (Also feel free to point them out in the comments and I'll fix them.)

_If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading._

― Lao Tzu

* * *

 

_Earth-2_

_2.5 Years Ago_

 

The following weeks were some of the best Harrison could remember. He and Barry still had to be careful, but somehow that only added a thrill to the blissfulness of just _being_ together, finally. They stole every moment they could together, arriving at work early in the morning and shutting themselves in Harrison’s office, or taking a long lunch or two in one of the dedicated labs with the door locked.

Sometimes Harrison would drop by Barry’s newly-created mail room just before he left for the evening. The room was long and relatively narrow, and it had a door on either end, leading out into two separate hallways.

Barry’s grin when he saw Harrison come through the door was like sunlight. He moved automatically to the far door to close it as Harrison closed the one he’d just come through.

Then they met in the middle.

Away from prying eyes, Harrison felt himself become a different person, someone he hadn’t been in years. He talked more freely, rediscovering a tendency to ramble enthusiastically about a topic without meaning to. It was a tendency Barry shared, and half the time it was just a constant stream of words between them, ideas and random thoughts and giddy hopes.

He laughed more easily, too, finding it hard to resist Barry’s horrible science jokes , to say nothing of how _un_ intentionally funny Barry could be.

And those few stolen moments of authenticity between them every day allowed him to keep up the charade more easily the rest of the time. He found it easier to keep his gaze from wandering to Barry during his rounds through the Cortex, easier to smile at him and include him in discussions without his voice threatening to break. Easier to meet Linda’s sharp eyes, which he found he could only feel a little bad about.

He did lay down a few rules for them both, just three really, if they were going do this. He vividly remembered that first night, and the conversation that followed their sudden make-out session in his office.

* * *

When they finally had to come up for air, Barry sat back in Harrison’s lap, gazing down at him with a blissful expression on his face. His cheeks were flushed, his hair rumpled and sticking up at odd angles. Harrison wondered dizzily if he looked as sloppy and giddy as Barry did in that moment.

Then, slowly, the fuzzy reality of the situation began to solidify at the edges. Harrison’s smile faltered and, like a mirror, so did Barry’s.

“Don’t—“ Barry tried, before Harrison even managed to get a word out.

“Barry…we _can't_.” He made himself say it anyway. “We shouldn’t have done this. _I_ shouldn’t have done this.” He tried to extricate himself from Barry’s arms, but Barry held onto him.

“Please,” He said, reaching out to fix an errant lock of Harrison’s hair. “Don’t do this.” His eyes were pleading, begging Harrison not to continue. Harrison felt trapped, caught between what he wanted—and what Barry was insisting _he_ wanted as well—and what he knew people would think, what Linda would say, what was right.

“Barry—”

“I’m starting to hate it when you start a sentence with my name,” Barry interrupted again, smiling sadly.

Harrison sighed.

“I…I don’t know what to do,” he confessed quietly, looking up at Barry with a terrible melancholy in his eyes. “I can build and run the most advanced physics and bioengineering lab in the country, but I don’t know what to do with you.”

Barry smiled tentatively.

“You could always just go with it,” he said, not sounding as though he thought it a remote possibility. Harrison chuckled ruefully.

“Oh, Barry. Show me a way we can have this that doesn’t end with you getting hurt, and I will take it.”

“Why would I get hurt?”

“Because people are going to talk. People are going to say I only hired you because we’re sleeping together…whether we were or ever actually _are_ or not.” He added quickly, seeing the way Barry’s eyes widened.

“And what about your mother? I doubt when she thinks about meeting your first boyfriend or girlfriend, she envisions you bringing home someone her age or older.”

“My mom ‘envisions’ me bringing someone home who makes me happy,” Barry said. “And anyway…who says we have to tell anyone? I mean…not just yet. This _just_ happened. Like, ten seconds ago. And I’ve barely gotten to know you, because you’ve spent all your time and energy making sure we stayed as far away from each other as possible.”

“So…you’re suggesting we see each other. But tell no one.”

“Just for now,” Barry assured him. “Just until we figure out whether this is really happening.”

“Oh, I think it’s fairly obvious at this point that it’s happening,” Harrison said, tightening his grip on Barry’s hips involuntarily. Barry’s smile returned in full force, and Harrison could feel his own expression echoing it.

“If we’re going to do this though, Barry,” Harrison said, trying to school his face into something more serious. “We’re going to need to lay down some rules.”

* * *

The first was that they wouldn’t tell anyone. That one seemed obvious enough, but that included Barry’s mother, and Harrison’s daughter. The second was that they would never show up at each other’s homes unannounced. The third, and the hardest for Harrison himself to follow, was that they would only see each other on weekdays, at the lab. He missed Barry more than he thought possible during those two days at the end of every week.

Barry probably had plenty of friends he wanted to spend time with on his days off from work. And Harrison, of course, had Jesse. She was going on sixteen now, and she had her parents’ combined brains but, thankfully, her mother’s social graces and personality. Harrison did his best to make sure of it.

She would probably graduate this year, a full two years early, and although Harrison was proud and supportive of all of her academic accomplishments, he dedicated his weekends to making sure that she, unlike him at her age, knew the importance of balance, of taking a break and having fun.

This weekend was supposed to be hiking, which he personally hated but knew Jesse loved.

He woke up early on Saturday. Their bags were already packed and loaded in the car the night before, but he wanted to make Jesse breakfast before they left, and dear _god,_ if he was going to carry a bunch of camping supplies up a mountain he needed a very large cup of coffee.

Jesse joined him in the kitchen before the eggs were done, already fully dressed and looking very perky for someone with no caffeine in their system. _Ah, the vitality of youth._

“So,” she said. “Are you really going to follow me up a mountain and sleep in a tent? Because I’m pretty sure that’s at the very top of your list of Top Ten Things I Never Want To Do Ever.”

“I never said I didn’t like hiking.” He scraped some eggs onto her plate, along with several slices of bacon.

“Dad, you hate the outdoors.”

“I do not!” He really did. He’d never had much patience with the notion of recreational climbing and walking. It bored him. You couldn’t read, write, calculate or even do much in the way of critical thinking while you were trying to pick your way through a half-baked excuse for a trail through the woods. It didn’t help that his blood seemed to be especially attractive to mosquitoes.

“Okay, fine,” he said. “To be honest with you, and I do always try to be, I hate everything about hiking and camping and…the…great outdoors.” He said the word “great” as though it were an expletive.

“But I know you love it, and it wouldn’t kill me to broaden my horizons a bit. Besides, I never hate hanging out with my little girl.”

Jesse rolled her eyes.

“My dad is such a sap.”

“Guilty as charged,” he said cheerfully. “A sap who’s taking you hiking today. So eat your breakfast and let’s get going!”

She eyed him suspiciously over a mouthful of egg.

“You’re in a shady good mood for someone who woke up early, is about to go hiking, and just got sassed by his teenage daughter. You haven’t even had your coffee yet, what gives?”

Harrison turned back to the stove, hiding his face under the pretense of putting on more bacon.

“Can’t a guy be in a good mood?” He asked, trying to keep the smile out of his voice.

“A guy can, sure. But you, on a Saturday, before 7 a.m.? Not a chance.”

“Such faith in me has my daughter.”

“So who is it?”

Harrison blinked, keeping his eyes resolutely on the frying pan.

“Who’s who now?”

“Whoever it is that’s got you acting so…chipper. I gotta be honest, it’s kind of creeping me out.”

He turned back to her, piling more bacon on her plate—it was astounding to him, how much a teenager could eat—and poured himself a cup of coffee, leaning against the kitchen table.

“What makes you think it’s a person? Maybe I just had a cup of coffee before you got up and then made a fresh pot.”

“Nah…it’s a person. I can tell. The coffee just mellows you out. This is different.”

Harrison sighed.

“And so annoyingly perceptive, is my daughter, too. Fine…yes. It’s a person. And they are…very special to me.”

“Ahaa, the truth comes out! So do I get to meet this mysterious and as-yet-genderless person anytime soon?”

Harrison shook his head.

“This _person_ is a _he,_ and no. I don’t think I’ll be bringing him home anytime soon. It’s a little bit…complicated.”

“Oooo. Drama. Somebody you work with?”

“No drama. And…maybe.”

“Well. Must be somebody pretty special to catch your attention while you’re working.”

“Yes,” Harrison murmured, taking a sip of his coffee. “He’s definitely very special.”

And that was rule number one, broken.

* * *

On Monday, Linda marched into his office, looking the kind of calm that on her face usually meant she was irate.

“You’re seeing him behind my back, aren’t you.” It wasn’t a question.

“Good morning, Linda,” Harrison said sardonically.

“Don’t ‘good morning,’ me, Harrison Wells. You are messing around with Barry Allen, after you _swore_ to me you would leave him alone. Look me in the eyes and tell me I’m full of it.”

He looked her in the eyes.

“You’re full of it,” he said, smiling.

“Oh my god.”

“Linda—“

“Oh my _fucking_ god. I can’t believe this. I can’t believe _you_ of all people would be stupid enough, irresponsible enough, _cruel_ enough to _do_ this!”

Harrison leaned forward at that, squinting at her.

“Now wait a minute, cruel—“

“Yes, Harrison, cruel.”

“How is it cruel? I love him, Linda. I love him, I want him, and when he came to me and told me he felt the same way, I just…” He gestured helplessly. “I didn’t want to pretend anymore!”

“But you _are_ pretending! And you’re making him pretend as well, now, don’t you see how wrong this is?”

“So what should I do? Tell the world? You know what people would say, what the press would do to him, to both of us! I can’t…I can’t put him through that. I can’t put Jesse through it, either.”

“Ah, yes, I wondered when you’d get around to using your daughter as an excuse.”

“Don’t you dare,” Harrison said, his voice gone quietly dangerous. “Linda, I consider you a friend and one of the few people in this world I trust, but if you ever even hint again that I would use my daughter, that I would do anything except what I genuinely feel is best for her…I swear to god, it will be the last time we ever speak to each other.”

Linda took a deep breath, visibly trying to calm down.

“I’m sorry. You’re right. That was out of line. But Harrison...listen to me once, and then I suppose there’ll be no point in me saying it again: Barry is young, and sweet, and naïve—“

“And brilliant—“ Harrison interjected.

“And inexperienced,” Linda finished determinedly. “For all you know, you’re the first real relationship he’s ever had, and all this secrecy, sneaking around, not telling the other people you both care about…right now it may seem exciting. But eventually, it’s going to hurt him.”

Harrison nodded, avoiding her eyes.

“I know. I know it will.”

And that’s how he ends up breaking the second rule as well.

* * *

Barry’s face when he opened the door was a mask of shock, quickly fading into a pleased smile.

“Hi! Um…come in.”

Harrison stepped inside, Barry closing the door behind him. The apartment was small. And, he realized as he followed Barry further inside, very cluttered. Not all that different from his first apartment, really.

“Nice place,” he commented.

“Yeah right,” Barry laughed. “You don’t have to be nice, I know it’s a shithole.”

“No, really…I like it. It’s…nostalgic.”

“Uh-huh,” Barry still sounded skeptical. “So…we’re breaking rule number two, I guess.”

“Yes…yes, I guess we are.”

“Can I ask why?”

Harrison looked around.

“Can I sit?”

Barry hastily grabbed a stack of newspapers from the couch.

“Sure, of course. Sit down…talk to me. Tell me what’s up.”

Harrison took a seat, and reached out a hand for Barry. Barry took it, a look of confusion and trepidation on his face.

“Harrison…?”

“Barry…I feel like I haven’t been entirely fair to you.”

“What d’you mean?”

“I...feel like I pushed you to keep this a secret. And I’m not sure this is going to work anymore.”

Barry’s whole body seemed to tense up. He drew his hand away from Harrison.

“Are you…” He cleared his throat. “Are you talking about the secrets, or…are you talking about…us?”

“What? No…Barry, no, I’m…this is not...I mean the secrets. Of course I mean the secrets.” He reached out for Barry’s hand, and Barry gave it again, somewhat reluctantly.

“I told you before that I was afraid of what it would mean, if everyone knew what’s going on between us. But I wasn’t completely honest with you. I’m afraid of what they’ll think of you, but I’m also worried about what they’ll think of me. And it could be as low-key as people looking at us both funny at work. But it could be as big as news stories about Dr. Wells and his…mid-life crisis boy toy.”

Barry quirked a smile.

“Boy toy? Really?”

“That’s what they’ll probably say, yes.”

“Look…” Barry sighed, moving aside some books so he could sit next to Harrison. “You don’t have to protect me. You wanna protect yourself, your daughter, even just your reputation or image or whatever…I get it. But you don’t have to worry about me. I’m not a kid and I’m not made of glass. I won’t break.”

“I know you won’t,” Harrison said, not quite meeting Barry’s eyes.

“Hey.” Barry ducked down to catch his gaze. “I won’t run at the first sign of trouble, either.”

Harrison smiled softly.

“As long as we’re on the same page,” he said. “I just want to make sure that this relationship is what you want. That’s I’m not somehow cheating you out of anything here.”

“Harry…I don’t know if you remember this, but…it _was_ my idea to keep this a secret in the first place. You’re not cheating me out of anything. To be honest, _I’m_ not ready to tell everybody yet. You think I want to hear Cisco’s jokes, or worse—”

“Hartley Rathaway,” they both groaned in unison. Harrison laughed.

“You have a point. Okay…but maybe we can amend the rules a bit.”

“Oh yeah?” Barry raised an eyebrow.

“Yes. For one thing, I’d really like to see you outside of work, from time to time. And maybe…”

“Yeah?” Barry prompted.

“Maybe you could come by this weekend…and meet Jesse.”


	6. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harrison has a choice to make, and if he makes the wrong one, he could lose everything.

_“These are but shadows of the things that have been,” said the Ghost. “They have no consciousness of us.”_

            — Charles Dickens, _A Christmas Carol_

* * *

 

_Earth-1_

_Christmas Eve_

 

On most days, but on today more than all the others so far, Harrison wonders what he’s still doing here.

It’s Christmas Eve, and Central City is a glory of lights and music. The crispness of the air, the recent light fall of snow, the rush and clamor for gifts and wrapping paper and decorations have all come together to create an air of festivity that’s almost palpable. He’s ventured outside as little as possible lately, both to avoid a repeat of what happened with Patty Spivot and to escape thinking about the fact that it’s Christmas in his own world, too, and that his daughter is spending it as the prisoner of a monster.

He busies himself with the panel of buttons he’s adjusting, focusing on the readings before him, a vain attempt to block out the image he can’t quite keep from his mind: Jessie’s face the last time he saw her. She was angry with him, disappointed in him. She’d looked at him the way Tess used to, right before the end, as though she were seeing him clearly for the first time. He had brushed it off as another simple fight they could make up for later. She was his joy, his Jessie Quick. There was nothing that could take that away from him for long.

Except, as it turned out, there was. And now his daughter, the most important person left in his life, is going to spend Christmas somewhere dark and dank, alone and scared, while her father, for all his resources and brains and goddamned popularity, bangs his head against the proverbial brick wall of an unsolvable problem: how to get her back without sacrificing anyone else.

And this is why he should never have stayed. He didn’t intend to, not after seeing incontrovertible proof that this Earth’s Barry Allen is no match for Zoom after all.

It still makes his stomach roll to think of that night, of how helpless and vulnerable and _broken_ Barry looked, dangling like a rag doll from Zoom’s raised fist. And he knew, just _knew_ that the minute Zoom disappeared, his Jessie was lost to him, like Barry, like everything else he held dear. He’d yelled himself hoarse, begging Zoom’s escape not to be reality, maybe even begging Zoom to come back, kill him instead…he isn’t sure. Everything after Zoom disappeared in a whirl of blue sparks is a painful blur to him.

He ought to have left then, that very night, but something made him stay. He would like to tell himself it wasn’t Barry, looking young and fragile in his hospital bed…but his powers of self-deception are not what they once were. He stayed to see that Barry was going to live, stayed to see that he would run again. Only when he was sure of those two facts did he finally pack his bags and turn towards home.

But then Caitlin was kidnapped by a psychic gorilla, of all things, and when Cisco asked for his help he found he couldn’t say no. He went reluctantly back to S.T.A.R. Labs, put on the garish yellow costume of Barry’s former nemesis, and knew as soon as he looked in the mirror that this mad plan of Cisco’s would never work. He didn’t look remotely like a futuristic evil genius. He didn’t even look like himself anymore, really. He just looked sleepless, careworn and haggard, a man who had very little left to lose and less to hope for.

Apparently, Barry had disagreed. The look on his face when he’d slammed Harrison against the wall knocked the breath out of him so thoroughly he barely felt the pain of the actual impact. It was more than the wary distrust he—and everyone else—had regarded Harrison with since his arrival. It was worse even than the fear on Cisco’s face, the way he edged away from whatever corner Harrison found himself standing in.

This was a hurt and a hatred so deep they seemed fathomless, and for the first time Harrison realized how little he understood of what his imposter had truly done to these people. Because behind all that loathing, there was still something fragile in Barry’s eyes, even as his body threatened to crush Harrison to death. Something in him longed as much as it despised, missed as much as it wanted this ghost gone.

Barry Allen had loved his Harrison Wells…maybe not the way his own Barry had once loved him, but it was love nonetheless. And if you could only hate someone as much as you had once loved them, then Barry Allen had loved his Dr. Wells very much indeed.

It hurt to look at directly. It hurt to be physically close to him like this, to be touched by him, even with all that anger and unbridled roughness between them like a steel wall. This young man looked like his Barry, sounded like his Barry. But he wasn’t his Barry, he never could have been. The angry, wounded person Cisco pulled off of him could never have smiled the way his Barry had smiled, laughed with carefree abandon, kissed another person like there was no tomorrow. The cracks in his soul went too far down.

There, too, was another moment when Harrison should have walked away. But Caitlin was brilliant, and kind, and in trouble, and he found himself in the unlucky position of being their best chance to get her back safely.

And again, the moment Caitlin was back, he should have gone. But that one impossible rescue had given him hope that together, they might affect another, and the fact that Cisco could still see his daughter if he tried, could still see her alive somewhere, scared but relatively unharmed, kept him sane from day to day in the meantime. Sane enough to stay, to keep working on ways to help Barry fight Zoom.

It had also nearly gotten him killed, twice…and both times made him wonder if maybe that wasn’t the solution. After all, if he’s dead, what reason is there to keep Jessie captive? Maybe Zoom will let her go.

 _More likely, he’ll kill her_ , a voice whispers in the back of his mind. _And she’ll die thinking you didn’t care at all, because that’s what he’ll tell her, just to drive the knife deeper._

If there is one thing he knows Zoom glories in, it’s causing pain.

That still doesn’t make it any easier on days like today, to justify to himself why he hasn’t simply gone to Zoom, begging for a trade: his life for Jessie’s. Especially now that he knows his role here is nothing more than as a chess piece in Zoom’s final game.

Zoom has made demands of him, and Zoom has his daughter. So of course he can’t refuse, no matter how much it sickens him to think of betraying these people who’ve made a place for him in their lives.

He thinks of Cisco’s hand patting his shoulder enthusiastically, the smile he’d shared with Jay. All those kids, safe and sound, the city saved from an unspeakable tragedy by their combined efforts, against hopeless odds and without the Flash to help. They had done something truly wonderful together, and Cisco had looked at him for the first time without any fear, like he was something other than the ghost of a thousand horrible Christmases past.

And now he’s going to betray them, if he can’t think of a way around it. Even if he can, he’s not sure he’s willing to stake Jessie’s life on his own cleverness _again._ Clearly when he thought he could outsmart Zoom before, he was wrong. And he supposes, knowing what he knows, he shouldn’t be all that surprised.

It’s a thought that brings a bitter, painful smile to his face.

He hears a noise and turns, mildly startled to see Barry standing on the other side of the glass, in the viewing area, looking at him despondently. He reaches out to press the nearby comm button.

“Did you need something?”

Barry, goddamn him, came to invite Harrison over for Christmas dinner.

There’s an ease to the set of his shoulders that’s new, like something has changed between them since Harrison turned around and saw him standing there. Harrison takes a moment to answer, the wind knocked out of him by Barry Allen yet again. The tilt of his head, like he’s trying not to pretend this is a big deal at all when it’s clearly important to him, for some reason. The encouraging little smile, willing Harrison to say yes. Oh god, they’re all so horribly _familiar._

He thinks perhaps he was wrong, before. This Barry has more in common with his than he thought. The same sweet reticence tangled up with confidence, each coming out at the strangest, least predictable times. The same kind heart, in spite of everything this Barry has gone through and all the reasons for unkindness, or even indifference, before him.

Harrison makes his decision without really meaning to.

If Zoom gets his way, it’ll be like losing him all over again. And it will be his fault, just like it was last time.

He can’t let that happen. He _will not_ let that happen.

He knows what Zoom wants, now. That’s got to give him an edge, count for something. And maybe, if he combines that with everything else he already knows, he can finally find a weakness, and exploit it.

He rejects Barry’s invitation gently, and watches him go with a deep, thrumming impatience and only a little sadness. The moment Barry’s back is out of sight, he turns and makes a call. If he’s going to do this, take this mad risk, he’s going to need a lot of help.


	7. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harrison finally has Barry over to meet Jessie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took way longer than intended and the next chapter probably will too, sadly, because work is kicking my ass lately. But I'm still typing diligently away in between real-life obligations, I promise!

_I believe the nicest and sweetest days are not those on which anything very splendid or wonderful or exciting happens but just those that bring simple little pleasures, following one another softly, like pearls slipping off a string._

 - L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Avonlea

* * *

_Earth-2_

_2.5 Years Ago_

 

On Saturday morning, Harrison took Jessie to see an art exhibit she’d been begging to visit for a month…something he’d been putting off for almost as long.

As with hiking, he didn’t really “get” art. Rather, he didn’t know how to look at it or talk about it the way other people seemed to think one was supposed to. He always found himself getting caught up in the mathematics, lines and curves and angles and perceived depth. But he loved watching Jessie enjoy it, so he trailed behind her, listening attentively to her effusive descriptions of the paintings, their artists’ histories and techniques, their composition, what each one made her think or feel.

They had lunch at her favorite restaurant afterward, and it was over an obscenely large basket of onion rings that she fixed him with an impish grin, her eyes narrowed in mock suspicion.

“So…what are you buttering me up for, Dad?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Harrison said, maintaining a carefully mild expression.

“Bull,” she said bluntly, around a mouthful of deep-fried onion. Harrison grimaced, and was rewarded with an eyeroll. He sighed.

“Okay. I may have been buttering you up. Just a little bit.” He felt suitably chastised, and thought—not for the first time—that in a normal father-daughter relationship, their roles ought to be reversed.

Jessie nodded knowingly, still grinning.

“Well, you did a good job,” she said. “I’m practically toast. So…what’s up?”

Harrison took a deep breath.

“Do you remember last week, you asked me about the man I’ve been seeing?” Jessie nodded. “Well, I thought perhaps you’d like to meet him. So I’ve invited him to have dinner with us tonight.”

Jessie’s eyes widened.

“You’re _kidding._ ”

Harrison shook his head, smiling involuntarily at the look of astonished glee that took over his daughter’s face.

“Oh my god!” She squealed. “You have _never_ brought someone home before. This is so exciting! What’s his name? What’s he like? Does he like sushi?”

Harrison laughed at her enthusiasm.

“Woah, there, Jessie Quick. Slow down! Finding out what he’s like is the whole point of meeting him.”

Jessie pouted.

“But how will I know what to wear or what to have for dinner or what music to put on if I don’t know anything about him?”

“Well, since I’m the one he’s involved with, you could entrust two of those three things to me,” Harrison suggested archly. “But to answer your first question, his name is Barry. Barry Allen. And there is _one_ thing you should know about him before you meet him.”

Jessie’s smile dropped away.

“Oh god. You have serious face. What’s wrong with him?”

That surprised an incredulous laugh out of him.

“Wh—nothing is _wrong_ with him. I just want to make sure you aren’t…taken by surprise.”

“Okay,” she said slowly. “So…what’s this thing I shouldn’t be surprised about?”

Harrison leaned in slightly, lowering his voice so no one at the surrounding tables would overhear.

“He’s. Well. Quite a bit…younger than I am.”

Jessie raised her eyebrows, her expression suddenly wary.

“Um, Dad, how much is ‘quite a bit,’ exactly?”

Harrison forced himself to meet his daughter’s eyes.

“He’s twenty-two.”

He watched the emotions chase each other across her face: surprise, a barely-suppressed urge to laugh, incredulity, and then an unsettling glimmer of wicked delight.

There was no mortification though, no horror or disgust. The knot in his stomach that had been there since he’d invited Barry over loosened, and he had to swallow a sigh of relief.

“So…Barry Allen, age twenty-two. Where did you guys meet?” She was trying to sound casual, but Harrison wasn’t fooled. His daughter had mischief in mind, he was sure of it. He would undoubtedly endure several days—or weeks—of cradle-robber jokes at the hands of his own flesh and blood. Perhaps the relief had been premature.

“We...met through work,” he said evasively, and knew immediately it was the wrong thing to say. Jessie’s eyes popped, and she finally looked a little horrified.

“Oh god. Dad, is he a _student_?”

“No!” He said loudly, then winced and lowered his voice. “No. Barry is _not_ a student. He is a brilliant young man who’s been assisting S.T.A.R. Labs on several of our largest projects.”

“Uh-huh,” she said dubiously. “And what does the rest of ‘S.T.A.R. Labs’ think of this?”

“I haven’t told them,” he said simply. “I wanted to tell you first.”

The mischief slipped from Jessie’s face like a mask falling away. What replaced it was a look of surprise tinged with affection.

“You’re really serious about him, I guess.”

Harrison could feel how ridiculously sentimental the smile spreading across his face was, but he didn’t even try to stop it.

“Yes,” he said softly. “I am.”

* * *

A few hours later found Harrison in the kitchen with his sleeves rolled up, putting the finishing touches on dinner as Jessie paced around the front hall, the skirt of her dress flouncing with every impatient step. He shook his head, smiling.

“Jessie,” he called. “You’re making me nervous. Come sit down.”

“He’s late,” she said, annoyed. “What if he got lost on the way here? We live in the middle of nowhere!”

“We live in the heart of a major city, in the age of GPS,” he reminded her.

“He could still get lost! Otherwise where is he?”

Harrison beamed at her as the doorbell rang.

“There,” he said. “Now wait—let me—”

But she was already rushing over to pull open the door, with what Harrison considered somewhat more force than necessary.

Barry stood on the stoop, hands behind his back, looking…well, devastating was the word, really, in a pair of dark jeans and a closely fitted jacket over a dark gray button-up. With the top two buttons left carelessly undone, no less. Harrison had to just let himself stare a moment before he snapped out of it and crossed the room, intent on moving Jessie’s seemingly-frozen form aside to let him in.

“Barry,” he said, unable to stop the wide smile from taking over his face. “Come in…this is my daughter, Jessie.”

She was still just gaping up at him, eyes wide _._ Barry stepped inside and turned the full force of his smile on her, bringing one hand from behind his back to reveal a small, neat bouquet of red and yellow daisies.

“A gift for the hostess,” he said charmingly, without a hint of irony or condescension in his voice. Jessie’s face reddened as she took the flowers wordlessly and backed away from the doorway, her eyes never leaving Barry’s face.

Barry watched her retreat with some bemusement before turning that same smile on Harrison, his other hand producing a bottle of wine.

“And for the host,” he said, a soft note to his voice that was reserved just for Harrison.

“Thank you,” Harrison murmured, taking the bottle. He blinked, briefly surprised by the label. It was one of his favorites…how had Barry known?

“I apologize for Jessie,” he said absently. “I don’t think she was expecting you to be so—”

“Young?” Barry asked, smile faltering a tiny bit. “I thought you were going to tell her before—”

Harrison left off scrutinizing the wine label and leaned forward to cut Barry off with a swift, chaste kiss.

“I did tell her,” he insisted. “And I was going to say ‘attractive.’”

It was Barry’s turn to blush.

“I’m…I…uh…oh. Thank you?”

Harrison shook his head fondly, then turned and led Barry further into the house. He headed for the kitchen first, opening the bottle and leaving it on the counter to breathe. He busied himself with pulling down two wine glasses and unrolling his sleeves before he turned back to Barry with a smile.

“Would you like a tour?”

“I’d love one.”

He walked Barry through the downstairs portion of the house, oddly conscious for the first time in years of his own living space. He felt as though he were holding his breath, waiting for Barry’s approval of each room. Which was ridiculous…but he still exhaled with relief each time Barry’s smile lit.

After the quick tour, Harrison called for Jessie and led Barry to the dining room—which, now that he thought about it, they hadn’t actually used in over a year. Usually he and Jessie ate in the kitchen, or in the living room with a movie playing. He wasn’t doing a stellar job of teaching his daughter social graces, come to think of it.

Jessie and Barry took their places on either side of the table, neither moving to sit down, and Harrison looked between them with some dismay. Jessie was still staring at Barry with her mouth slightly open, and Barry was already shifting awkwardly under the constant attention. He backed away from the table, intending to bring in the food.

Barry immediately moved to follow.

“Do you need some help?” His eyes were pleading. Harrison gave him an apologetic smile.

“No, you’re our guest. Sit. I’ll be right back.”

And he withdrew, leaving them alone.

The second he left the room, he heard Jessie start talking.

“So…you and my dad, huh.”

He suppressed a chuckle. Poor Barry. He had fifteen years of experience with Jessie’s ability to ask a million questions, so he recognized the tone. He only hoped she wouldn’t ask him anything horribly inappropriate in the two minutes it took him to bring the food in from the kitchen.

As it turned out, he had underestimated Barry yet again. When he emerged, balancing two large plates carefully on each arm—thank god for those four years waiting tables during college—Barry was sitting with his chin in his hands, listening as Jessie told him about the art exhibit they’d visited that morning.

It was nearly impossible to distract Jessie from a subject of fascination, but Barry had managed to do it in less than two minutes. Harrison placed the trays down carefully before he could drop them out of sheer shock.

“Here we are,” he said. “I hope you like sushi, Barry.”

He happened to know that Barry did; he’d seen him share with Ronnie and Caitlin during lunch in the Cortex often enough. Those two _loved_ sushi.

“Who doesn’t like sushi?” Barry asked, leaning back slightly to get out of Harrison’s way.

“Dad took some convincing,” Jessie said. Barry raised an eyebrow at him in question.

“Yes, well,” he said, taking his seat, “there’s sushi and then there’s sushi. My first experience wasn’t a pleasant one.”

“He ate gas station sushi,” Jessie stage-whispered. Barry tried to stop himself from laughing, and failed.

“Wow, _really_? That’s…” he caught sight of Harrison’s face. “Uh…I mean…it could happen to anyone?”

Harrison grinned and shook his head.

“As many times as she’s told this story, I truly believe it has only ever happened to me.”

“I finally had to bribe him to get him to try it,” Jessie said. “I promised I wouldn’t complain about getting Big Belly Burger for a whole month if he tried sushi just one more time.”

“A promise you neglected to keep,” Harrison reminded her.

“Hey…I said I wouldn’t complain for a month. I didn’t say _which_ month.”

Barry laughed at that, and then the conversation lulled for a moment as everyone’s attention turned to the food. Harrison watched Barry’s face as he took his first bite, feeling a not-entirely-appropriate little thrill at the way Barry’s eyes widened in surprise and then fluttered closed in pleasure.

“Wow,” he said, when he’d swallowed his mouthful. “That is…wow.”

“Oh god, don’t flatter him,” Jessie begged. “He’s already got a big head about his cooking skills.”

Barry ate another piece slowly, apparently considering, then shrugged apologetically.

“Sorry, Jessie, I think I’m gonna have to say he’s earned it.”

Harrison beamed.

As dinner went on, Harrison found his nervousness settling down into a surprising sort of comfort. He mostly watched as Barry and Jessie bantered back and forth, marveling at how easily Barry seemed to fit here, both into his home and into the tightly-stitched relationship he had with his daughter.

Most people, he’d found, couldn’t keep up with Jessie. He only succeeded because he had a decade and a half of practice, and he’d observed long ago that none of Jessie’s friends seemed to see the full facets of herself that she showed at home. She had friends for different occasions: one friend she talked to about school, one she talked to about boys and clothes and makeup, one she went to when she wanted to complain about him…the list went on.

It wasn’t that her friends weren’t all nice kids—they were. But it worried him, the way she compartmentalized herself so carefully with everyone else. Sometimes he thought maybe it was his fault, that seeing the way he changed between home and work had taught her to be this way.

But watching her with Barry, he saw his brilliant, hilarious, ridiculous daughter come out in full force, and it amazed him. She regaled Barry with anecdotes, stories about her classes, her friends, a few about Harrison he could have done without reliving. And Barry didn’t just listen to her, patient and obligatory, the way most adults did when kids talked. He _really_ listened, stopped her to ask questions, used the ends of her stories to springboard into sharing his own.

Harrison just continued to sit there, sushi forgotten, occasionally chiming in but mostly just listening, falling a little more hopelessly in love, and thinking that perhaps this was why he’d never brought someone home to meet Jessie before.

Before he knew it, the light behind the curtains had faded and the clock in the hallway was chiming out midnight.

He blinked, surprised, and looked at his watch just in case, because that couldn’t be right. Sure enough, though, it was twelve o’clock.

“ _He_ llo. Jess, honey, don’t you have to be up early tomorrow?” She wrinkled her nose, but nodded.

“Well, I guess we should say goodnight.” He sounded reluctant even to his own ears.

“Can Barry stay?” Jessie blurted. Barry turned red, and Harrison nearly choked on his own breath.

“Um. No…not tonight, honey,” he managed.

She rolled her eyes.

“Fine…can he come back tomorrow?”

Barry grinned, and Harrison had to laugh.

“We’ll see. You know, believe it or not, Barry does have friends and a mom he might like to see. He might even want a day to himself, you never know.”

“Oh. Right.” Jessie wilted a little, then looked at Barry. “You’ll come back though, right? Some other time?”

Barry smiled that blinding smile at her. “Of course…um, as long as Harrison wants me to.”

“Oh, he will,” she said matter-of-factly. She slid out of her seat and came around to plant a kiss on Harrison’s cheek.

“’Night, Dad,” she said. “Night, Barry.” And then she disappeared up the stairs without waiting for an answer from either of them.

Harrison stood, looking at Barry bemusedly. Before he could say anything, his phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out, puzzled, and read the text from Jessie.

 

_Don’t mess it up! >.<_

 

“Ha ha,” he muttered, then slipped it back into his pocket before Barry could see what she’d written.

“I hate to leave you with a mess to clean up this late,” Barry said apologetically as he stood up. Harrison raised an eyebrow.

“You are _not_ about to offer to help me do dishes.”

“Um…maybe?”

“No. You’re a guest. Guests don’t do dishes. Out.” He stepped in close as he spoke, playfully shuffling Barry out of the dining room, past the kitchen and toward the front door. Barry laughed, mock-fighting him all the way. They both stopped, though, when Barry’s back fetched up against the door.

They were practically nose-to-nose, crowded against the door in the narrow entryway. Barry’s breath hitched as he somehow managed to look up at Harrison through his lashes despite their similar heights. His grin began slipping at the corners, falling into something uncertain, and yet anticipatory.

“Sorry,” Barry said, voice a little breathless. “I really didn’t mean to stay so late.”

“I don’t mind,” Harrison murmured, leaning in closer and observing the way Barry’s chin tilted automatically, his eyelids fluttering.

“I should probably get home,” he said, voice nearly at a whisper.

“Mhmm,” Harrison hummed noncommittally, lips barely a millimeter from Barry’s.

“Thank you for having me.” His voice was just a breath across Harrison’s face.

“My pleasure, Barry Allen,” Harrison said, his lips brushing Barry’s with every word. Barry made a soft noise and kissed him, winding both arms around his waist and pulling him in close. Harrison braced his hands against the door on either side of Barry’s head, feeling the sudden need for something solid to lean against as he got swept up in it.

He felt surrounded by Barry in this small space: his hands warm through Harrison’s shirt, his hair soft between Harrison’s fingers. The soap-detergent-aftershave smell of him was everywhere, mingled with the safe, familiar smells of home.

And this was why they’d had rule number three in the first place. This was different from work. More dangerous. Harrison was in a place he felt safe, somewhere he could expect total privacy. His daughter was in her room for the night, most likely with her nose buried in a book…and had practically pouted to find out that Barry wasn’t going to be staying the night.

No one was going to walk in on them. No one was going to see, or judge, or tell. Barry felt so good against him, and there was absolutely nothing to stop him from carrying Barry to his room and staying there with him, all night, alone for hours in the dark.

Barry pulled away gently, bringing his hands up to Harrison’s chest as if to remind himself to keep some space between them. He looked up at Harrison with a wry smile, eyes glinting hypnotic green in the semi-darkness.

“Good night, Harry,” he said softly.

Except that. That would stop him. He felt a strange mixture of disappointment and gratitude.

“Good night, Barry.” He stepped away, giving Barry the space to move so he could open the door. The cool night air felt good against his overheated skin, and he took a deep breath in an effort to collect himself.

“I’ll see you Monday,” he said. Barry grinned, leaning up to press a last, brief kiss to his lips.

“I can’t wait,” he said softly, before turning away to walk to his car.

Harrison watched him go, waiting until the taillights faded from his sight, and then went back inside, a lingering smile on his face.


	8. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A surprise visitor to the Cortex threatens Harry's top-secret project.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry. I've worked on this on and off for weeks and I'm still not completely happy with it. But I figured it was time to go ahead and post already.

_As with many tragedies, our story opens in a moment of triumph._

          - The Wars of the Roses

* * *

_Harrison sees Cisco jumping out of his chair, hands thrown up in celebration. Hartley is grinning with bared teeth, so hard it must hurt, hugging himself, fists clenched. Ronnie and Caitlin are holding each other, jumping up and down, all professionalism and dignity forgotten. They each grab hold of one of Hartley's arms and haul him in, Cisco already latching onto Ronnie's shoulder. They all look so young, so happy, and Harrison feels a swell of pride. Not one of them is within five years of being thirty, and they've just changed the world. And this is just the beginning._

_Then there's Barry. He stands a little apart, in a circle of his own light. His eyes are wide and shining, his mouth slightly open in an expression of absolute wonder as he gazes up at the screen. When he tears his eyes away, they catch on Harrison's, and the look in them takes his breath away. He feels immortal under the weight of those eyes, invincible. When Barry looks at him like that, he's a hero._

_He returns Barry's smile easily, no pretense or secrecy, no holding back. He reaches out a hand, wanting to touch, to feel connected to the love he sees in Barry's eyes in a way that's tangible. Their fingertips barely brush._

_That's when the world explodes._

* * *

 

_Earth-1_

_Present Day_

 

Harrison jerks awake, face pressed to the cold, hard surface of his—well, Cisco’s—worktable. He sits up with a soft groan and presses two fingers to the lids of his eyes, hard, trying to dispel the last vestiges of the dream.

He tries to remember them before that last, horrible day. He remembers Cisco, always cracking jokes, bouncing from keyboard to keyboard, full of life and the joy of discovery. Caitlin, kind and brilliant, quiet and reserved except for in those rare moments where Ronnie managed to startle a laugh out of her. Hartley, so prickly and difficult but so clearly at home, among friends, enjoying playing the role of the resident misanthrope. Linda, always steady, always there to inject some sense into their collective madness.

He tries not to remember Barry at all. The pain of those memories is still too sharp, too new. And being here feels like opening the wound again and again, seeing them all, so similar to the people he knew, so different. All looking at him with expressions of suspicion and distrust that he knows he deserves on some level, even if not for the reasons they think.

All except, of course, Barry. Because the Barry Allen of this earth seems to have been created expressly to cause Harrison pain.

He looks at Harrison with something like hope in his face, with a searching eagerness that makes the bile rise to the back of Harrison’s throat because he knows it’s not _him_ Barry is hoping to see.

That other man, the one who wore his face…who killed his doppelganger and possibly the man’s wife as well, another Tess...Barry is looking for him. A man who murdered his mother, ruined his father, who terrorized his friends and family. Who broke his heart.

Barry is hoping Harrison is all the better parts of that man, that _anything_ he knew about him was real. He even tries to talk to Harrison about it once, which ends in Harrison throwing things across the room and saying everything he can think of to hurt Barry, to push him away so he doesn’t have to watch a Barry that is not _his_ Barry watching him, hoping to see someone else.

He forces himself to go through with Zoom’s plans despite his earlier conviction that he could never do it. He reminds himself, angrily, that this is not his world. These are not his people. The young man with shadows in his green eyes and a smile that twists just a little on its way up is not Barry, not really. He has his name, and his face, but none of the other things that made him matter to Harrison the way he does.

He tells himself these things, but he’s not sure he believes them.

* * *

_Earth-2_

_5 Months Before the Accelerator Launch_

 

On Monday Harrison arrived at work exceptionally early. The building was still deserted, as far as he could tell, and his steps echoed as he walked across the Cortex, headed for the elevator that would take him up to his office.

He stepped into the still-darkened hallway that led to the northwest elevator bank, and was surprised to find someone already waiting for the elevators. Linda.

“Good morning, Linda,” he said, his voice as light as possible. The two of them had barely spoken since their last conversation about Barry. Linda still performed her job better than anyone else could, but she did this by working around him as much as possible, rather than with him. He found, to his slight surprise, that he’d missed her.

“Morning, Dr. Wells,” she said formally, her expression stiff and unhappy. The elevator arrived, and Harrison stood aside to let her in first.

“You’re here early today,” he tried again.

“I’m always here this early,” she deadpanned. Harrison sighed.

“Linda…is there anything I can do or say that will make you hate me less?”

Linda looked up at him with a flicker of surprise.

“Harrison…I don’t hate you.” The elevator stopped, and they got out. Linda walked ahead of him, briskly enough that even with his much longer legs Harrison had to hurry to keep up.

“You certainly don’t like me very much anymore. You haven’t spoken to me since—” he stopped himself from finishing that sentence. Linda had reached her desk and was shucking off her coat, putting down her purse, and generally getting herself situated for the day ahead. She focused on these tasks as she spoke, never once looking directly at him.

“I don’t see the point in speaking when there’s nothing to say. You want to do what you want to do, Harrison, and you don’t seem to care who your actions put at risk.”

“Who _exactly_ do my actions put at risk?” Harrison practically threw up his hands, his patience with this notion gone. “Myself? Barry? The lab? Jesse? Because I have it on good authority that the answer is ‘none of the above.’ I’m _happy,_ Linda. He makes me happy. We make _each other_ happy. And Jesse loves him! She—”

“Wait. You…you let him meet Jesse?” Linda cut in, a strange note to her voice. Her face was the picture of disbelief. Harrison didn’t understand what was so unusual about that statement.

“Yes, I let him meet Jesse. He came over for dinner on Saturday. We had sushi.”

“…and?”

Harrison huffed a frustrated sigh.

“And then I sent Jesse to bed, kissed him goodnight, and saw him to the door.”

“That’s it?” The frank surprise in her tone hurt.

“You really think I’m a horrible human being, don’t you.” He asked flatly. Linda, to his astonishment, actually looked a bit ashamed.

“No…” she said slowly. “I don’t think you’re horrible, Harrison, I just…I know you said you cared about Barry, but I didn’t think you were quite this serious. I’m sorry.”

Harrison blinked.

“You’re…sorry? I’m…” He cast about for the appropriate word to express how out of his depth he was, and found none. “Well, I’m confused.”

Linda offered him a sheepish grin, more warmth in her expression than he’d seen in weeks.

“It’s going to sound ridiculous from your point of view, but try to see it from mine. I’ve worked for you a long time, and whether you like to acknowledge it or not, I’ve spent a lot of that time scheduling your entire life.”

“So?” Harrison didn’t understand what that had to do with anything.

“So, I’ve scheduled your _dates._ I know about every single person you’ve taken out since Jesse’s mother passed way. I know exactly how many of them you’ve taken out more than once, and I know exactly how many of them have ever met Jesse. The answer to that second one, by the way, is none. Even when you came back for a second or third date, you’ve _never_ let someone meet your daughter before. So I just…didn’t realize you were this serious. If I had…”

“If you had?”

“I would have approached the whole thing differently,” Linda said, gesturing helplessly. “I would have tried harder to understand, to help you instead of dissuading you.”

“I still don’t understand why you were so adamant about dissuading me in the first place.”

Linda sighed.

“You’re not a heartless man, Harrison. I know you never _mean_ to hurt anyone, but you do tend to go through dates like pairs of socks. You’ve even broken a couple of hearts, believe it or not.”

“You’re kidding,” Harrison said, mildly horrified.

“Not even a little. And no, I won’t tell you which ones. Let’s suffice it to say I’m the one who usually ends up cleaning up the mess: crossing dates off your calendar, deleting names and numbers from your dossier. I’ve even let one or two of them cry on my shoulder. You break up with someone, I help make them disappear from your life. I just…wasn’t looking forward to making Barry disappear.”

Harrison lowered himself slowly into one of the chairs against the wall, pressing the fingers of one hand into his eyes. He wondered if it was possible to get a headache from sheer mortification.

“You make it sound like I just throw people away.”

“No,” Linda said quickly. “You don’t, not really. You just…don’t always realize, I think, how important your attention is to people. How important _you_ become, or how quickly. I don’t think you expect to matter to anyone as much as you do. But…if you’re this serious, I guess I have nothing to worry about.”

“Except Barry breaking my heart, of course.”

“He’d better not. Then I really will have to make him disappear.”

Harrison looked up and gave her a small smile.

“Did anyone ever tell you that you’re a little bit scary?”

Linda returned the smile, a tad too sweetly.

“No one’s said it twice.”

“I rest my case,” Harrison said around a chuckle.

* * *

Linda’s acceptance felt like the last piece of a puzzle being pressed into place. Harrison was happy, more than happy. He was more content than he’d been in years, not since Jesse’s mother passed away.

At work he had a team of brilliant scientists working with him to change the future, and Harrison found a renewed passion for his work that had gotten lost somehow, in the endless daily shuffle of meetings and paperwork. He spent much less time in his office and much more time down in the individual labs, working with each team, identifying problems, brainstorming solutions.

The disturbing side effect of this was that he suspected he was losing some of his hard-won reputation as an enigmatic hard-ass. But…sacrifices had to be made.

At home, he had Jesse to think about, and she was still his first joy...just no longer his _only_ joy. He kept up their weekend excursions, never allowing work or his relationship with Barry to detract from his daughter’s time. Except, of course, on the few occasions when he gave in to her endless wheedling and invited Barry over for dinner on Saturdays. And by few, he meant nearly every weekend, because Jesse couldn’t seem to get enough of the sight of her dad dating someone. Which was…odd, perhaps, but heartening.

At the end of every such night, Harrison walked Barry to the door and saw him off with a kiss. Even though each time, it was a little harder to say goodbye, a little harder to watch Barry go. Especially when Barry stopped being the one to pull away first

Harrison couldn’t explain, even to himself, what made him so reluctant to simply ask Barry to stay.

He never offered, and of course Barry never asked. They had fallen into a holding pattern—a very pleasant holding pattern, mind. They went to work, where they were completely professional (except for a few stolen moments in Harry’s office, but that only happened…every other day or so). They spent time together during the week, at Barry’s apartment or Harrison’s house. They had dinner on Saturday nights with Jesse. They said goodnight and went their separate ways, that unspoken indecision humming between them like a hive of bees.

It was a slow, sweetly-building madness.

* * *

The trouble with being happy, of course, was that happy people forgot to be cautious.

Harrison was at lunch in the Cortex, with Cisco, Hartley, and Barry. Caitlin and Ronnie had gone off by themselves somewhere, which wasn’t unusual. Cisco and Hartley were in the midst of a heated debate that, as usual, had very little to do with actual science. Cisco was growing increasingly excitable with every bored, languid pronouncement from Hartley’s mouth, and Harrison was beginning to wonder if he should intervene before things got ugly.

“Han Solo is _definitely_ a better character than Indiana Jones, how is this even a question?!”

“The real question is how you, a _scientist_ , can favor a common, unwashed criminal in a scientifically atrocious _space opera_ over a highly intelligent doctor of archaeology whose story is set in the _real world._ ”

“Riiiiight. In the “real world” where religious mythology comes to life and indigenous people are used as props and sidekicks.”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re referring to.”

“The Ark. Short Round!”

“This conversation? Ending _now._ ” Harrison cut in finally, voice half-pleading. He caught Barry giving him an amused look and glowered. It had no effect on Barry, but the other two fell blessedly silent.

Then:

“Actually, Hartley…archaeology as it’s presented in the Indiana Jones films is highly inaccurate and sensationalized.”

Harrison rounded on Barry, giving a little shake of his head, eyes panicked. Barry took a bite of his burger, chewed, swallowed, and then plowed on.

“And to Cisco’s point, the character of Han Solo _is_ better, because he’s allowed to develop over the course of three trilogies, whereas Indiana Jones remains essentially the same throughout all of his films.”

Harrison looked at Cisco to find that he wasn’t the only one holding his breath. Barry and Hartley almost never interacted directly, and Barry had never gone so far as to contradict Hartley on anything before. Hartley wasn’t as bad as some people made him out to be, but he could be a little territorial, and he’d never seemed to take to Barry the way the rest of them did, seeming to see his presence as some kind of personal affront.

But Hartley just grinned cheekily, giving Barry a considering look.

“Well played, Allen. I concede the point. Still…there’s something to be said for consistency.”

“Indy _definitely_ loses there,” Barry retorted. “He’s with a different woman in every film!”

Hartley balled up his hamburger wrapper and tossed it at Barry, chuckling. The chuckle died a swift death when he missed and bounced it off Harrison’s forehead instead.

Harrison blinked, surprised. There was a moment of absolute silence in which no one said anything and Hartley turned red, then very pale.

Then Barry burst into laughter.

“Oh man…your _faces._ Hartley, breathe, man. He’s not gonna hulk out on you.”

That’s when Harrison noticed someone unfamiliar walking into the Cortex, a dour-faced man in jeans and a leather jacket. Barry, Cisco, and Hartley fell silent as they noticed, too. He shouldn’t have been able to get into the Cortex without a security badge or escort, and it was plain to see that this man had neither.

He stood abruptly, handing his balled-up burger wrapper off to Barry and smoothing the front of his suit before offering the man his hand.

“Hello, welcome to S.T.A.R. Labs…can I help you?”

“Harrison Wells,” the man replied, rather rudely ignoring the proffered hand. “I need to speak to you about the illegal dark matter project you’re conducting on these premises.”

Harrison felt as though he’d been doused in ice water. He narrowed his eyes at Garrick, pulling his hand back. When he spoke, his tone was considerably cooler.

“Do you have security clearance to be in this part of the lab, Mr….”

“Dr. Jay Garrick,” the man snapped impatiently, putting just the slightest amount of petulant emphasis on _doctor._ Harrison scoffed inwardly. The man’s tone of voice had a righteous air to it that he immediately detested.

“Well, _Dr._ Garrick, I’m sorry that you came all this way for nothing, but I’m going to have to ask you to leave my lab. You are not cleared to be here.” Garrick scowled.

“ _You_ are not cleared for the experiments you’re conducting, and I came here as a courtesy. If I were to take my findings to the—”

“Your _findings_ , if based on anything that goes on in this building, qualify as corporate espionage, so please…take them wherever you want. But take yourself out of here first, before I have you removed.”

Garrick glared at him for a long moment, the indignation practically radiating off him in visible waves. Then he turned to Barry, Cisco, and Hartley, who were gaping silently at the both of them.

“I hope you know what kind of man you’re working for,” he said. “He is breaking the law, and he is putting you, me, and everyone else in this city in danger.”

Harrison stepped between them.

“Get out,” he bit, his voice barely above a whisper.

Garrick turned and left without another word. Harrison had a feeling that wouldn’t be the last he saw of him.

He took a deep breath, feeling all the anger drain out of him. He waited an extra beat, just in case, before turning back to the others.

Hartley and Cisco looked troubled, but that was all. They were having a silent conversation with their eyes, which they immediately stopped when they realized he was looking at them.

What Garrick had said probably made at least half sense to them, he thought. Everything that went on in the Cortex and the satellite labs was meticulously documented and declared, after all, and they were each responsible for their own paperwork. There was only one project involving dark matter, which he handled the paperwork for personally, and they were both on it.

But Barry wasn’t, and he was looking at Harrison with confusion and a little shock. Harrison groaned inwardly. Barry had never heard him on the phone with a competitor, or in a meeting with an intractable project manager making excuses for their lack of progress.

He’d never seen him angry, either.

And he had no idea what that conversation was about, although as he looked between Harrison, Cisco, and Hartley, it was clearly beginning to dawn on him that he was the only one in the room out of the loop.

“Barry—” he started, but Barry shook his head, flicking his eyes at the other two.

Harrison treated himself to another deep, calming breath. Right. They had a secret to keep, and trying to explain your unpleasant behavior toward an intruder wasn’t something you generally _did_ for the company delivery man.

“Well,” he said, changing tacks. “That was…a disagreeable way to end the lunch hour. I think that’s our cue to get back to work.”

Cisco and Hartley nodded silently, scrambling to pick up all the paper debris from their lunches. Harrison bent down and grabbed the wadded-up burger wrapper that had bounced off his forehead, smiling sadly down at it.

 _It was fun while it lasted,_ he thought.

“I’ll be in my office for the rest of the afternoon,” he said. “If you need something, please go through Linda.”

He barely heard the small chorus of “okays” behind him as he turned and headed for the elevator up to the administrative floor. He felt heavier, suddenly.

Harrison remembered, all too well, the way things had been with Jesse’s mother toward the end. They had been bright-eyed kids together, founded S.T.A.R. Labs together…she had even named it, actually. Named it for him, because he was, she said, the only star she saw.

They were different people then, and he was a different person with her. Softer, happier, more sentimental. And he remained that person throughout the early days of their marriage.

But the way he changed at work bothered her. It wasn’t as though he yelled, or threw things, or was unreasonable. On the contrary, he had always had the habit of expressing his anger quietly. He only raised his voice when necessary, such as when someone tried to talk over him. Which he _detested._

Tess couldn’t reconcile the warm, loving person he was at home with the cold, sarcastic person he could be in the lab. He tried to explain it to her once, only to be accused of being a liar.

_They can’t both be real, Harrison. So are you lying to me, or to them?_

He wasn’t lying to anyone, but he could never convince Tess of that. She stayed with him until the day she died, the two of them coexisting peacefully for Jesse’s sake. But she looked at him with sadness, those last few years, an ever-present question in her eyes: _who are you? Where is the man I married?_ It was all he could do to stop himself from screaming _I’m right here! I didn’t go anywhere!_

And just now, in the Cortex, he’d seen Barry fix him with that same look, that same question in his eyes.

Harrison got to his desk and practically collapsed into his chair, suddenly exhausted. He would have to deal with this Dr. Garrick person and his accusations eventually, but at that moment all he could think about was Barry, and the way he’d looked at him.

He would try to explain to Barry later, when they were alone, and hope he could understand. But he wasn’t holding his breath. Jesse was shocked that he was dating someone steadily. Linda was surprised that he’d brought someone home to meet his daughter. His employees walked on eggshells around him, as though he were a bomb about to go off at any moment. Never mind that he’d yet to have a single public outburst in the lab in fifteen years, even over the most egregious displays of incompetence and carelessness.

No one had ever understood. Why should Barry be any different?

* * *

Unfortunately he didn’t have a chance to speak to Barry for the rest of that day, or the next, or the next. And maybe he was as oblivious as Linda claimed, because it took him until the late afternoon on that second full day to think maybe Barry was avoiding him.

Once he thought it, though, he couldn’t shake the notion. It terrified him, that Barry might pull away so quickly and never even give him a chance to explain.

So on the third afternoon after Jay Garrick’s visit, Harrison dropped everything and went looking for him.

He went to the mailroom first, but Barry wasn’t there. Linda said he checked in, according to security, but she hadn’t seen him. He checked the Cortex, too…but Cisco said he hadn’t seen Barry at all that day.

Caitlin said he hadn’t been by the med bay, and Hartley said he hadn’t seen him either.

Harrison was just about to give up when Ronnie poked his head out from behind the massive metal—thing—he and Cisco had been working on.

“You looking for Barry, Dr. Wells? I think I saw him head toward Special Projects this morning. Don’t remember seeing him come back, though.”

Harrison thanked him and then headed that way himself, but Barry wasn’t in Special Projects. Luckily, the security guard at the checkpoint remembered him.

“The delivery guy? Yeah, he was in here earlier,” she said. “Asked where all the paperwork on the lab was kept.”

“Paperwork?” Harrison was bewildered.

“Yeah, blueprints, approvals, project plans…that sort of thing.”

“What did you tell him?

She shrugged.

“I told him all that was on the administrative floors. He has clearance for the whole lab, right?”

Harrison sighed deeply and mentally kicked himself.

“Right. Thank you.”

He turned and headed back toward the Cortex. He thought he knew what Barry was looking for.

* * *

Harrison couldn’t explain why he hadn’t brought Barry in on the particle accelerator project yet. Oh, he _had_ an explanation. He just couldn’t use it. It wasn’t as though Barry didn’t have clearance to everything else in the lab, and Harrison knew from deeply personal experience that he could keep a secret.

Linda had asked him about it that Monday morning, after their talk. He’d had no ready answer for her. He couldn’t even pretend it was for Barry’s protection, to give him deniability…because then he would have to explain to her that half the reason for the project’s utter secrecy was the fact that S.T.A.R. Labs hadn’t officially been approved as a site for this particular kind of experimentation.

But getting that approval was a losing battle; no government would ever give the go-ahead for something on this scale, with this kind of risk, because it had never been successfully done, and it would never be done until someone took a chance and allowed it.

He couldn’t tell Linda that for obvious reasons.

No one else knew, not even the handful of scientists working on the project with him. He was already putting them at risk by involving them at all, but something this big couldn’t be done by one man working alone. The best protection he could afford them, then, was plausible deniability, and the best way to protect Barry, should everything go wrong, was to keep him out of it all together.

But still. Harrison hated keeping secrets from him, even if he had good reasons. He had hated it when he and Barry were in a good place, and happy. He’d worried he was putting all that at risk by lying to him.

Now it seemed he was being proved right. Because Barry had been completely in the dark when Jay Garrick showed up, and he’d known it. Harrison should have realized this was a possibility, should have seen it coming. It could have been anything: a slip-up from Cisco, another piece of equipment delivered to the wrong door. It was just Harrison’s luck it had been a minor confrontation from an outside scientist.

And how Jay Garrick knew what he knew was another question Harrison desperately needed answers to.

He turned down a dimly-lit, little-used hallway and looked behind him before stepping inside a door marked “Storage.” The interior was cluttered and ill-kept, an utterly unremarkable space. Which was what made it perfect.

He headed toward the back. There was an old-fashioned fuse box on the wall. He opened it and flipped the switches inside in a well-memorized order.

A space opened up in the floor.

Harrison lowered himself into the hole carefully, gripping the ladder with one hand as he hit the button to close the way behind him. Getting out was a much simpler affair than getting in.

Once he was a few rungs away from the ground he jumped down the rest of the way, landing lightly on his feet and moving into the familiar space, already knowing what he would find.

“It’s amazing.” Barry was standing there, in the control room, looking up at the video feed that monitored the accelerator’s interior at all times. There was awe in his voice, but Harrison had heard him awed before, and something about this fell flat.

“It was supposed to be a secret,” he said softly, coming to rest beside Barry, standing as closely as he dared. Barry turned to look at him, and the hurt that had been hidden in his voice was raw on his face, unfiltered.

“I’m not upset that you kept a project a secret,” he said, as though that should be obvious. “You don’t have to tell me everything. But…the way you acted when Dr. Garrick was here—”

“Wasn’t someone you recognized.”

“No…it wasn’t. It was like watching you become a different person.”

Harrison closed his eyes.

“I’m sorry.” He didn’t know what else he could say. He couldn’t not be that person when the situation called for it, couldn’t promise it would never happen again. He shouldn’t even apologize for it, but he couldn’t help himself. Barry looked so _hurt._

A hand touched his arm. He opened his eyes.

“Don’t be sorry,” Barry said. “I just…it caught me off guard, that’s all.  I didn’t know, for a second…if that was you, and you were different with me. Or if maybe that wasn’t you at all, and you were different with him.”

“Barry—”

“Then I thought,” he went on, as though Harrison hadn’t spoken. “I thought that…maybe I just don’t know every single thing about you yet. Maybe I haven’t seen you in every mood you’ll ever be in, or in every situation. I’d never seen you get mad before.”

Harrison took a slow, careful breath. He refused to hope.

Barry shrugged, and gave him a small grin.

“It’s fine. I’ve only known you for a few months…you don’t know everything about me yet, either, right?”

“Right,” Harrison said, voice weak with relief.

“So that’s fine. But I’m still…this. This is…amazing, Harry. If it works…”

“It’ll change the world,” Harrison finished for him, smiling cautiously.

“It will. But…if it doesn’t, it could do a lot of damage. And I’ve been looking over the specs—not the stuff upstairs, the ones you keep on the computers down here. By the way…you need better passwords. But I think Dr. Garrick may have a point.”

Harrison frowned.

“What do you mean?”

Barry jerked his head in the direction of one of the monitors.

“There,” he said, pointing. Harrison looked where he indicated. Then blinked. Then looked again.

“That’s—”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, hell.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In my version of Earth-2, there are six film sequels to the original Star Wars trilogy. They are: Heir to the Empire, Dark Force Rising, The Last Command, The Hand of Thrawn (both books in that series made into a single movie), and the Jedi Academy series smushed into two films instead of three (it could totally work). Also the prequels were never made, but that story exists in book form as part of the Expanded Universe (with some improvements).


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